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Saturday, 10 August 2013

Contest Update (and Prizes!)

Today's Saturday contest is now closed. Now I can announce the prizes:

First Prize: $1,000 cash

Second Prize: $500 cash

Third Prize: $100 cash

Surprised? Thought you might be.

All prizes provided by a Mystery Donor who wishes to remain anonymous.

The contest was a rousing success. We got entries all day long, about 370–380 altogether. (There are 392 emails in the "peopleworking" mailbox, but there were some resends and double-sends in there that I saw go by. I'll have a final count in a day or two.)

Traffic today was only about 2,500 higher than normal for a Saturday, meaning that our little in-house contest didn't go viral. I'm sure some people did discover us through hearing about the contest, but not very many. (They're welcome, of course.)

Next week after the judges sift through all the entries we'll post a bunch of semifinalists for discussion and comment, and some time after that we'll announce the prizewinners.

Should make for a fun few days around here. I'm looking forward to it, at least. I haven't looked at every entry—far from it at the moment—but I've seen some great shots go by. The pictures were taken all over the world.

Thanks to everyone for participating! TOP will take a break on Sunday as we recover from the behind-the-scenes administrating (and I have family passing through town today). See you Monday.

Mike(Thanks to Mystery Donor)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

I was in the middle of nowhere when the competition was announced (literally - http://goo.gl/maps/YnAzW), but sounds like it was fun.

Personally, I'm going to try and use this as a learning exercise in reading photographs, by seeing what I can get out of the semifinalists' efforts. Kind of playing amateur art critic. That way, if I apply myself & learn something, I might come out a winner too.